Swiss investment company Smartenergy has secured more than €82m for a 100MW Spanish green hydrogen project under the European Hydrogen Bank’s “auction as a service” support scheme.
The Orange.Bat project, located in the municipality of Onda, Castellon, in Valencia, will help to decarbonise the Spanish ceramics sector.
Orange.Bat has been selected as one of the main beneficiaries of the European Hydrogen Bank’s (AaaS) scheme. The selected projects were evaluated by the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), with the aid to be managed at the national level by Spain’s Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE).
Orange.Bat received the highest premium among all awarded proposals, with a rate of €0.69 per kilogram of green hydrogen produced.
Smartenergy said the green hydrogen project met CINEA’s demanding eligibility criteria, confirming not only its technical and financial viability, but also its advanced development status, administrative maturity, and clearly defined execution and commissioning schedule.
Industrial hydrogen consumers, primarily from the ceramics sector, have already expressed their intention to purchase 75% of the plant’s green hydrogen output as a partial replacement for the natural gas currently used in their combustion processes.
The support approved by IDAE will amount to a total of €82,526,858 over the first 10 years of operation, linked to an expected annual production of 119,604 tonnes of green hydrogen.
This allocation falls under the AaaS – Renewable Hydrogen Auctions programme, designed to accelerate the deployment of this technology in hard-to-abate sectors.
The Orange.Bat plant is currently at an advanced stage of the permitting process and has recently been granted the Integrated Environmental Authorisation by the Valencian Community.
It is the first green hydrogen project to receive this permit in the region and will provide a clean, locally produced energy vector, which is key for the Spanish ceramics sector to comply with its emission reduction targets in the coming years.
The Orange.Bat project, led by Smartenergy, brings together key industrial players, electrolysis technology providers, construction companies, research centres, and institutional bodies. It also has the backing of the two main associations of the Spanish ceramic industry, ASCER and ANFFECC.